X-Ray Plasma Diagnostics

Hot and dense plasmas are of enormous interest in basic physics research because of the multitude of interesting phenomena that arise from them. Such plasmas are also of great technological and industrial importance in areas such as laser fusion, EUV and soft x-ray lasers, lithography, etc. Owing to their high energy concentration, these plasmas tend to involve rapid expansions, thus sharpening gradients in density and other parameters.

As hot and dense plasmas become fully ionized, the radiation starts to consist of a broad continuum of bremsstrahlung due to free-electron–ion interactions and narrow-line emissions caused by bound-bound transitions in the atoms (ions) of various charge states.